Don't Let Me Go
by Fringie Jester
Summary: *Spoilers for Season 5* Walter's lab is in the process of being shut down for good as the Fringe family tries to come to terms with Walter's sudden disappearance.
1. Searching For Answers

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Fringe or any of the canon characters within the show itself.

 **Author's note:** This is the first fanfiction that I have written in quite some time, so please go easy on me. I don't really plan on this particular story to go on for very long, but I will post other stories that are connected to this one in the future (if you guys like it). Also I am aware that Walter left behind a VHS tape to explain his disappearance, but part of me keeps thinking that some of it might have been erased when the Observers were erased, so I am operating under that assumption while writing this story.

 **Chapter 1:** Searching For Answers

It had been what felt like years since Walter had almost seemingly vanished into thin air and the Fringe team, along with Massive Dynamics, launched their worldwide investigation to start their search for the man who was more than just a vital part of their team but also a valued family member. However, no matter what idea their team had come up with, they always seemingly managed to turn up short with each of their ideas. He had left almost no traces behind to give them any clues to his whereabouts except for a strange tulip that had been quickly yet neatly drawn out with a black marker on a small, plain white sheet of paper that he had stuffed inside of an envelope and addressed it to Peter to arrive in his mailbox shortly before his disappearance. It was all very unexplainable and seemingly without reason.

In the past, Walter had wandered off to various places for anything from food to having a nice chat with someone else on another floor of the building, more times than anyone could count on just one hand. At first the team had tried their best to remain calm; hoping that he would just randomly show up somewhere like he had normally done in the past, but after a week had passed them by and nothing had turned up, everyone was starting to get a little more than just worried for Walter's safety. Peter's worst fears were starting to set in and what made things even worse for him and Olivia was the fact that their young daughter, Etta, was starting to take notice of the disappearance of her grandfather and he could tell that she was becoming almost as distressed about the situation as the rest of them of them had been. Peter had done his best to reassure the young blonde that they would find him very soon and that the two of them would be able to go to the park to swing again very soon, but Peter could tell that Etta was too smart to believe that he had meant any of that, even at the young age of three.

* * *

Astrid leaned back in one of the many chairs that were scattered out across Walter's lab and looked around the big room for what felt to be the last time, half expecting the man to just come bounding out of his office with some sort of new dessert idea that he wanted her to give a try. She had to admit, there were times that she had gotten aggravated with some of Walter's, what she considered to be childish antics, but she had grown very fond of the man that she had worked alongside of for the past eight or so years. _What I wouldn't do to hear the sound of his voice again…_ Astrid thought to herself, knowing that it would probably do her and the others a world of wonder.

Wiping away some of her tears that had managed to slip away out of the corners of her eyes and down onto her cheeks with the back of her sleeve, she stood up from her seat and made her way over to some of the lab equipment that had been left behind to finish up some more of her cleaning before she finally had to cover everything up to leave it just the way that they had found it on day one, for good this time. The small team was going to be giving up on their search for Walter that very day and they were closing down his lab to make it official. The sheer thought of the idea was starting to make Astrid become overcome by the grief that she had been holding back for so long as she tried to be strong for everyone else, hoping that it would buy all of them enough time that he would just turn up, but he never had.

After taking more time than necessary to finish cleaning up the rest of the lab, secretly hoping that if she took her time that it would give Walter even more time to come through the entrance in the lab to announce to all of them that he had returned after being off on some sort of adventure all on his own. But that hadn't been the case. Finally being able muster up some more of her courage, Astrid finally peaked her head through Walter's office door and saw that his bed had been just exactly how he had left it before he had disappeared. It was untidy, just as if he had gotten out of it that morning and went straight to work on a case that day, just like he had any other.

Taking a deep breath, she bent over to begin straightening up each layer of blankets that were laid out on top of the mattress and then finally moved to straightening up the pillows before finally smoothing out the covers with the palms of her hands. It's not that it had really mattered if the bed was perfect or not, knowing that some men from the campus would probably drop by later to haul the mattress out of there, but it had mattered to her to do something like this for Walter, just like she always had before in the past. Peter had already taken most of the things that his father had once held dear to him out of his office and placed them in some sort of storage facility that was nearer to the house that he and Olivia had moved into shortly after Olivia had found out that she was pregnant with Etta. Everything would remain safe there, if they had ever needed it in the near future or if they had somehow managed to find him again, and at the very least, Peter would have something to remember him by.

"Astrid?!" Peter's voice suddenly echoed out across the empty lab, causing her to jump. "Are you okay?" he asked, sounding softer this time as he walked over to the door of his father's old office. "I wanted to come by to see how you were doing… I hated leaving you with all of this, but I had some things that I needed to take care of too."

Astrid nodded in understanding; all of them had had more than their fair share of things to deal with lately, especially Peter who looked as though he had aged a few years during the past few months of searching for his father. "I'm fine; I'm just finishing up in here." She lied to him as she took a moment to just down on the edge of the bed, not being able to stand much longer due to the weight of emotions that she had been carrying along with her all day. Peter took a seat next to her and sat there silently for a moment as he looked around at what was left of his father's office. "You know what I think the worst part about all of this is? We'll never know what happened to him."

Peter shook his head from sided-to-side, "There has to be something out there that we have missed. I know that there has to be. How could he have just disappeared like that? It's impossible."

"Peter, I don't think that anything is impossible with your father." She said as she wiped her eyes once again with the back of her sleeve. "I thought that I had this world figured out, until I met him and saw the things that he was capable of doing… things that all of us probably thought were impossible at one time… and now, hardly anything seems to surprise us anymore. We just keep moving on like we always have…"

"I can't just give up on him like that. Not after all that we've been through lately." He said as he placed his face into the palms of his hands. "We will find him, all of us needs some sort of closer or we'll never be able to move on without wondering if he's still out there somewhere…"

"Peter—" Astrid started but was suddenly cut off by a loud banging noise from the inside of the lab, and almost as always, Peter was the first to react to the noise by jumping up from the bed and quietly wandered over the door to peer through the crack in the doorway

"Do you see anyone?" Astrid whispered as she stood up and made her way over to stand behind him.

"Uh-uh." He said as he pulled the door back a little more and stepped outside. "I know that you're in here!" Peter warned as he walked around the upper ledge of the lab and descended down the steps onto the floor of the lab. "We heard you, so why don't you just show yourself and we'll go easy on you." Peter went silent for a moment and briefly turned his gaze back towards Astrid. "It's probably just some college kids playing a prank on us." Peter said, as he returned his gaze to what he was doing, when he heard the metal clunking noise once again, this time the noise seemed to be much closer to him, so he edged closer towards the sound. "I think that it's coming from inside of the deprivation chamber…" he took another step closer, easing his way over to the metal container that so many of Walter's experiments had taken place in over the years and placed his hand on the door handle, ready to yank it open and pull whoever it was from the inside.

Astrid lingered nearby him as she looked around the lab for something to use against the perpetrator, just in case things started to go wrong and it turned out to be much more than anything that Peter could handle by himself. "Three… two… one…" Peter whispered as he jerked open the door and squinted into the darkness, taking him a moment or two to figure out exactly what he was looking at. "Walter?!" Peter nearly screamed.


	2. Return

**Chapter 2:** Return

"Walter, oh my gosh… Walter." Peter nervously uttered under his breath as he got down inside of the deprivation tank, careful not to hurt Walter whose head was just barely floating above the surface with his eyes closed. For a brief moment Peter almost froze in place as he stood there, fearing that the worst could have happened to the man that he had come to know as his father, but he knew that he didn't have time to waste and forced himself to be brave enough to push forward to see if his father was still alive. Quickly stooping over and gently taking him into his arms to keep his father's head above the surface of the water that was sloshing around against the sides, Peter looked him over to make sure that he was still alive. The slow up and down motions of his father's chest told him that the man was still breathing, and he moved his hand over to check his pulse, which seemed to be weak to him, but it was still there.

"How did he end up in here?" Peter asked, looking over to Astrid who was watching the situation as it unfolded in front of her in what seemed to be shock. "I know that we checked this thing months ago when he went missing, he couldn't have been in here for six months… but he's still alive…" Peter shook his head as he tried to figure out a safe way to get Walter out of the deprivation tank. He had managed to get Olivia out of the tank once before, but she was a lot lighter than Walter was and he didn't seem capable of moving himself to help him get himself out of the tank. "Astrid, go and get me a towel… or something to lay him on, and Walter needs something to wear. We need to get him to the hospital."

Astrid wasted no time at all and started scrambling to find something to help get Walter cleaned up as Peter took a moment to himself to look down at his father as he held him in his arms. Emotions were finally starting to overtake him as he ran his fingers over his father's wet, curly hair. After months of searching for him, there he was, alive, but everything still seemed to be far from the finish line. He had imagined that he would have turned up dead, or that they would have found him far away in some other state and that they would have met in an embrace when they showed up to rescue him, but he hadn't been prepared for something like this.

Moments later, Astrid brought over some towels over, along with an unrequested pillow from Walter's bed, and laid them out onto the floor and together, the two of them managed to hoist him up and out of the tank and onto the floor. "I'll take care of him from here. You call an ambulance and Olivia, and tell her to meet us at the hospital."

"Already on it." Astrid replied, trying not to let her nerves get the best of her as she called in for an ambulance and Peter went straight to work trying to dry Walter off. The weather had been chilly lately, and it almost felt cold enough to snow and the last thing that he wanted was for Walter to die from something else right after he had just gotten him back. "They're on their way. They should be here any minute now." She finished as she stooped down beside of Peter and helped him finish drying Walter off. "I can't believe that he's back…" Astrid said, still hardly believing her eyes. Was he a ghost or was this a dream? Nothing was making any sense to her on how he could just show up inside of the deprivation tank like that, and unfortunately the only person that actually could help them make sense of any of it wasn't able to tell them anything about what had happened.

* * *

Peter paced about in the waiting room, waiting to hear something, just anything about his father's condition. Astrid was also in the room, sitting close by with her hands clasped together in her lap with a solemn yet anxious look on her face, just as eager to find out what was wrong with him as Peter was. "Peter, Olivia will be here soon." Astrid's voice came out as stressed as she looked, but she had grown to feel almost like a mother to him over the years, as strange as that might sound to anyone else, and she felt the urge to try to soothe him. "Walter will be okay. Maybe he just needs some rest. I mean who knows what he's been though the past few months?"

"That's the problem." Peter said as he stopped in his tracks. "He could have been tortured for all that we know and we weren't there to stop it…" his voice started to crack as he spoke those last words, but Astrid knew the man well enough to know that she could sense something else hidden in his words, and that was anger. She knew that for the longest of time, Peter had blamed himself for Walter's disappearance and took it upon himself to go out on his own and look for him. He had distanced himself from the rest of them as he went through his own process of grief and anger, and that had put a strain on his and Olivia's relationship at times, but he did his best to balance everything out and Olivia was as understanding about everything as she possibly could be under the circumstance. He had lost both of them more times than he could count and Peter couldn't bear for it to happen to them again, to just let their little family be shattered by forces beyond their control.

"I don't think so Peter. I didn't see any cuts or bruises on him while we were drying him off. He just looked like he was sleeping…" she said as she drifted off into her own thoughts as Olivia suddenly came into view down the hallway that led into the waiting room with the young Etta in tow behind her. Peter quickly met up with her and welcomed her with an embrace.

"Grandpa Walter is back?" Etta asked and looked around the room for her grandfather and then back up to Peter with a worried look on her face. "I don't see him, where is he?"

Peter knelt down to his daughter's height and looked her in the eyes as he took her hands into his own. "He's resting, kiddo. In another room. But he should be able to take you to the carousels again very soon." He said, giving her a soft smile and Etta's face lit up with a smile of her own.

"You promise?"

"Mhmm." He said with a nod as stood back up and mussed her curly hair up and then turned his attention back to Olivia. "Olivia… I-I don't know how this happened. We heard a loud noise and then the next thing that Astrid and I knew; we found Walter was in the deprivation tank." He went silent for a moment, there was something familiar about what he was saying but he couldn't quite put all of the pieces together yet. "What if Walter was erased?" Peter asked, eyeing the waiting room to see if anyone else was listening in on their conversation. "From time. And-And he just suddenly appeared like I did back in Raiden Lake?" Peter's eyes widened as he searched his mind for other clues that could help him put everything together, but hardly anything else was coming. "The tulip… it didn't make sense to me, but now it does. He must have known that something was about to happen and sent it to me before he went missing."

Olivia grimaced as she tried to take everything in and make sense of what her husband was trying to explain to her. "Peter, do you know how crazy all of that sounds?" Olivia asked but then went silent in thought herself. Most of her memories from that time had been wiped away, clean, and replaced with her old memories, the ones that she should've had but were erased along with Peter. "Okay, let's run with that thought then. Why would Walter come back in the deprivation tank? You came back in Raiden Lake, that's where you had the accident that night…" Olivia glanced down at Etta for a moment, knowing that she couldn't go much further without ruining the innocence of their daughter. She wanted to shield and protect their daughter from the truth of what was really going on in this strange world for as long as she possibly could, and that wasn't an easy task with the whole family working for the Fringe Division.

"Pardon me." Said a deep voice, coming from a door of an adjacent room, it was the doctor. "I don't mean to interrupt anything, but I thought that you would like to know that your father checks out. All of his vitals are doing surprisingly well. There's no reason why he shouldn't be up and about after he gets some rest." He said as he looked down at his clipboard to check for anything else that he might mention. "Although it seems that his body has been through a great deal of stress lately, so he needs to take it easy and take some time off to recover from whatever might have happened to him. That means no work for a while."

"Great! Can we see him yet?" Peter asked, knowing his father well enough to know that he wouldn't be taking any time off when he went back to the lab. His father's work was what always kept him going. _Work is good for the soul,_ he could remember him telling him over-and-over again when he was younger.

He rocked back on his heels for a moment and gave a look to them that said, _I should say no, but…_ "You can go in and see him. But keep it quiet. He needs his rest."

Peter nodded and pushed past him and into his father's room. They had put Walter into a private room, with a window in the back, with the shades cracked just a little to allow some of the sunlight in, even though the rest of the lights in the room were out. Olivia came into the room next, carrying Etta into the room, along with Astrid shortly behind them.

"He looks so… _peaceful…_ " Astrid said as she walked over to the head of Walter's bed and gently ran her fingers through his curly hair and rested her hand on his cheek. "But it looks like he's in need of something good to eat." She said with a sad smile, as she took notice that it looked as though he had lost some weight while he was away. "It's probably a good thing that I bake things when I get nervous… I still have some pies at home that I think that he would just love to have to eat later. It's been driving my father crazy."

"I just hope that he can remember what happened…" Peter muttered as he walked over to the opposite side of the bed and peered down at him. "I'm just glad to have you back… _dad."_


	3. A Lapse In Time

**Author's note:** I would like to thank all of you who have taken the time to read, favorite and review the first two chapters of this fanfic and for being patient with the delay in between chapters. I will do my best to get more chapters out a bit quicker in the future, as I know that this seems to be moving rather slowly at the moment. But I would also like to say that the Fringe fandom is a lot larger than I thought that it would be on here and a lot more active too and it actually amazes me to see that after two years of being off of the air and I look forward to interacting with you guys more very soon.

 **Chapter 3:** A Lapse In Time

"He says that he doesn't remember anything that happened to him." Peter said as he paced around outside of his father's door, still trying to stitch all of the puzzle pieces together. Olivia wore a perplexed expression as she folded her arms over her chest; feeling relaxed enough to speak about the situation now that Etta couldn't hear what they were talking about. Their little girl was inside sitting on her grandfathers bed telling him of all of the adventures that she had been having while he was away and Walter was leaning back against his pillows listening intently to every word of it as Astrid sat in the chair next to the bed humoring her stories as much as Walter had been. Even with their newest clue, things still weren't adding up. "The last thing that he remembers is getting into the tank and probably falling asleep in there and then the next thing that he knows, he is waking up here at the hospital." His head was going over each of the clues that he had already gone over some many time before now and nothing was seemingly adding up to his disappearance. Walter had been spending a lot of time outside of his lab before he disappeared and he hadn't been acting like his normal self.

"Peter, no matter what happened to him, he just got back. Let's not push him too far, not until he is ready. I think that we should allow him to have some time to recover before we start asking too many questions. I mean I know that you would like to have some answers, all of us would, but we need to think about him right now and let him have some rest."

Peter was about to protest what Olivia had said, but he knew that she was right, so he bit his tongue and gave her a nod. "You know what, you're right. How do you think that we should go about telling him that his lab has been practically boxed up again? He didn't take it too well the first time."

Olivia put her palm up to her forehead as she glanced over to the door, almost as if she could see through the door to see Walter sitting there looking dismayed as he finds out about his lab. "You know what; I think that I'll call Nina Sharp, to see if I can have her pull any strings." Olivia said as she turned to walk back out into the main hallway, leaving Peter to go back inside to join the rest of them.

 **The next day**

"What do you mean my lab has been closed down?" Walter nearly screamed as the words left Peter's lips. "No, no. We were just there, weren't we? Where will I go? Where will I live?"

"Walter, Walter, calm down." Astrid said, as she came closer to him and took both of his hands into her own hands in an attempt to soothe his nerves, just as she had so many times before. Truthfully, she enjoyed doing it and it had been something that she had sorely missed over the past few months. In fact, it was actually almost a relief to her to see that he was still the same man that he had always been. "You can stay with me and my dad until we have everything back into place, just the way that you like it." She said as she moved her hands over to start buttoning up his coat for him. "I will personally see to it that everything is back to where it should be." Walter had always been very particular with his belongings in the lab and now that everything had been moved, she knew that his OCD would kick into overdrive at the sight of it.

"Thank you, Astro." Walter said with a frown. "It feels like I have spent one night away from that place and you people act as though I were dead." He felt a feeling of unease winding itself around inside of his stomach, making him feel a little nauseated. The fact that his family had thought that he was dead was more puzzling to him than he had encountered lately and he so desperately wanted to get to the bottom of it just as Peter seemed too.

"Well, Walter you were gone a long time. We did think that you were dead… or not coming back at least." She said as she looked up at him with tears forming in her eyes. She knew that he had been rather uneasy with all of the sentiment that he had been shown when he would have otherwise enjoyed it. She couldn't imagine all of the things that must have been going through his mind at the moment, but he, at the very least had been trying to understand their situation as they were trying to understand his own. "I have missed you." She said rather sheepishly as she wrapped her arms around him and buried her head in his chest.

"I only wish that I could say the same. But to me, it was only just yesterday when I last saw you…" he said as he awkwardly returned Astrid's hug.

"I know." She whispered as she stood upright and gently wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her jacket. "I've already had some of your things brought over to my place from the storage room that Olivia and Peter put everything in. The rest are being taken back over to Harvard so I can get started with putting everything away."

"I'm coming with you. I want to make sure some clumsy ape doesn't break anything while they're bringing the boxes back in. No one seems to know what the word fragile means anymore." He huffed as he glanced around the hospital room that he had been in one last time, eagerly wanting out now that they had released him. Walter knew that he would have to file some sort of report later to give an account of what happened, a debriefing of sorts, but Peter wouldn't let the FBI anywhere near him as of yet, not that he could have stopped them if they wanted to talk to him badly enough, but they seemed to understand that he needed some space until he was able to regain his bearings. "I'm ready to go, Astro. I'm hungry and I need something to eat other than this wretched hospital food." He started heading off towards the door and she couldn't help but roll her eyes before a smile quickly replaced it as she followed along behind him.

* * *

Astrid and her father shared a small apartment together, she didn't have a spare room for Walter to stay in, but she voluntarily allowed him to stay in her own room for a night or two until he could return to live in his own living space, if you could call it that of course. She had been proud of Walter for finally getting out of the lab more than he used to and part of that credit belonged to Peter coming into his life, and of course Walter's granddaughter, Etta. Their little family had endured so much already and they had grown stronger because of it and if there was one thing that Astrid had learned during all of her years of working with the Bishop clan and that was family was held together by more than just blood, it was the strong bond that all of them had developed together and that made them family. Astrid herself was even a part of it and Etta even called her Aunt Astrid.

"Here we are, Walter." Astrid said as she showed him over to her room. "Remember now, my father doesn't know anything about the Fringe Division so don't say anything about it." Astrid warned.

"Of course, Asper." He said as he glanced inside of her room before wandering over to her bed and sitting down on the side of it. "I appreciate this." he gave her a smile and she returned it before coming over to sit beside of him. "Now I understand what Peter must have felt like, when he appeared here, in this universe and no one remembered who he was. Except all of you remember me. I feel strange knowing that all of you thought that I was dead and I don't remember anything about the past few months that all of you have said that I went missing. I can't remember what I was doing before I got into the tank or why I might have disappeared…" he sighed as he looked over to her, a sad look plainly on his face and she reached over and took his hand. "Did I leave any clues behind?"

"A white tulip that was drawn on a sheet of paper." She replied, scrutinizing his features to see any hint of recognition that might have been displayed on his features but was only met with confusion.

"A white tulip? Why would I do something like that?"

"We haven't been able to figure it out yet, but you sent it to Peter through the mail and when he called to ask you why you had sent it, no one was there to answer the phone. Peter got worried and went straight to the lab and couldn't find you there… all of us were worried about you. The FBI was looking for you for weeks, along with Massive Dynamics and they couldn't even find you on their surveillance cameras." She shook her head from side to side. "Perhaps we'll all be able to put our heads together later and think of something soon. But for right now, you need some rest. Doctor's orders. Come on, let me get you a piece of the pie that I made, you look like you need it." She said as she stood up and walked over towards the door and looked back, pointing a finger in his direction. "Don't make me ask twice." She teased.

Walter almost reluctantly agreed, but since it was pie he was less inclined to argue with his assistant. "I suppose that you're right. I am a little hungry. As I said early, the food at the hospital was wretched." Standing up, Walter made his way over to the door and followed Astrid into the kitchen and took a seat at the table while she cut a piece of pie for the two of them and brought it back over to the table and sat Walter's plate down in front of him. "Thank you." He said as he picked up his fork and began to dig in. "Was there anything else, besides the tulip?" his curiosity would leave him alone even with his stomach begging for more of Astrid's rhubarb pie.

"Well…" Astrid said as she glanced up to the ceiling in thought. "There was a tape that looked like you had been trying recording something on it, but it was like something tried to erase bits and pieces of it off of the tape… or it just didn't record."

"Do you know where this tape is? I would very much like to have a look at it, perhaps I can figure out what I was trying to do before I disappeared." Walter said and took another bite of his pie. "This pie is delightful, Astro."

"I think that the Fringe Division still has stored away as evidence. I will call Olivia and ask her if she can bring it over to the lab tomorrow. We can watch it over there. It may take that long to liberate it." She said as she stood up from the table and left the kitchen to make the phone call."

"At least it wasn't stored in amber. I would imagine that would have taken quite a bit longer…" Walter trailed off as he mulled over his own words, wondering why he would mention something like amber. The thought was rather perplexing to say the least, but perhaps the tape would hold more answers to his ever growing list of questions that had been growing since he had returned back to this timeline.


	4. Settling Back In

**Chapter 4:** Settling Back In

Both Walter and Astrid made it back into the lab early the next day, eagerly waiting on the arrival of all of his belongings so that they could get right to work on setting up his lab and making it their own once again. Peter and Olivia had told them that they would be arriving later to help them unpack all of the boxes, but Walter had insisted on being at the forefront of all of it as they brought everything in. He had always been a cautious one when it came to his lab equipment because he had respected the subject as much as he understood it, something that others didn't seem to understand. The mere thought of it bothered Walter to see the worker just callously dropping his boxes of sensitive equipment and instruments onto the floor, perhaps breaking everything beyond repair. Those instruments were precious to him, whether anyone else could find value in them or not.

"Astro, I think that they're finally here." Walter said as he walked over towards the door to open it and pushed it back to make it easier for them to bring the multiple boxes through. "I'm getting rid of any obstacles in their way, which should lessen the chances of something being broke." He explained as he walked back over to stand next to Astrid so he could start conducting them in the directions that they should be going with all of his things.

"Walter, I wish that you would have let me do this today. You need some rest." She said as she patted him on his back. "I could have taken care of this you know." She knew that the man had his particularities about pretty much everything but she was worried about him for more reasons than just the one. She was worried that he might just disappear again, without any reason, just like he had before. Astrid hadn't even put up a fight with him when he kept insisting that he was well enough to help her with his own lab, so she let him come along with her, just so she could keep an eye on him. Astrid even sometimes found herself reaching out to touch the man, just to make sure that he was still tangible to her touch, as if he were some kind of ghost walking around.

"Nonsense. Work is good for the soul." He said with a grin as the first man came through the door brandishing a few of the smaller packages and Walter eagerly pointed towards the table on the far side of room to which the man gave him a nod and headed off in that direction. "And it's a good distraction. If I would have stayed there in your apartment like you had asked me to–I think that I would have went crazy, just sitting there by myself as I tried to think about what must have happened during the past few months. Why all of this happened… Perhaps my subconscious mind can solve the problem if I can distract myself long enough."

Astrid sighed; she knew that it would've been a bad idea to leave him there in the apartment to begin with because she didn't want to leave him there alone away from everything that he knew, including his family when they dropped by later. Walter needed to be around his family now more than ever as he needed some comfort instead of being left all alone in his lab again. "Alright Walter. Just promise me that you will take it easy, okay?" She said as she gently tugged on his arm to get him to look her in the eyes and when their eyes met, she knew that he was thinking it over even though he didn't want too. Astrid always had a way with him that no one else seemed to have, she just always seemed to know how to soothe him and ease his discomfort in order to help keep him on track and she hoped that that hadn't worn off while he was gone.

"I promise." He muttered with a slight nod. "I know that you're worried about me, but I assure you that I'm fine." Or at the very least, he felt _fine_ , even if everyone else was treating him as if he were some sort of ticking time bomb that was getting ready to explode.

"I know." She said as she reached out and started messing with the buttons on his jacket. "It's kind of warm in here. Maybe you should take this off." She knew that he didn't like it when she 'mother-hened him' as he had phrased it once before, but today, it couldn't be helped. She had been his assistant for a number of years now and she had sorely missed doing her job while he was gone and part of her wanted to make up for all of the lost time. "I know, I know. You can take care of yourself Walter, you don't have to say it." She said as she caught the look that he was giving her. "I like doing it though."

Those words had brought an unexpected smile to his face. "You know, what all of you are doing, it reminds me of when I brought Peter back from the other side. I sat by his bedside almost every night, just to be sure that he was breathing. I don't think that he was ever aware of it, but I couldn't lose him again…" he suddenly stopped speaking when he saw the questioning look on his assistant's face and then he even caught what he had just said to her.

"Walter." Astrid cautiously walked around in front of him and gave him a look of concern as she gently placed her hands on his arms. "That's not what happened. Peter died that night, in the lake. Don't you remember?"

"Y-Yes, of course I remember. How could I forget?" he said as he felt the fingers on his left hand starting to twitch uncontrollably, and he immediately grabbed it with his other hand in a faulty attempt to make himself stop. It was a nervous tic that he had had for quite some time now; he had guessed that it had been a side effect of the electroshock therapy treatment that he had been given at St. Claire's. "I'm not sure where the thought come from…" he muttered and looked up as another man pushed a box trolley through the door with a few boxes on it that were much larger than what the first man had brought in.

"Would you like me to handle this why you get some rest? Your bed is still in your office if you need to lay down for a little while." she asked, getting a little closer to the scientist so that the others in the room couldn't hear what the two of them were talking about.

"No. No. I will be fine." He said as he backed up a couple of steps and then proceeded to walk on past her to tell the other man where he could set all of the boxes down and then followed him over to the corner of the room to begin his search through all of them.

* * *

"How is he?" Peter asked, meeting up with Astrid at the door of the lab and quickly eyed his father who was currently walking about the lab putting everything back in their rightful order, noting that he was still walking around the lab in those straight lines as he often had due to his OCD.

Astrid's eyes also flickered towards the man who seemed to be caught up in his own little world near some equipment on the other side of the room, and then back to Peter. "I think that there might be something wrong with him." She said in a hushed voice. "He's remembering things that haven't happened to him."

"Really? Like what?" Peter crossed his arms and peered down at Astrid.

"Well… he told me that he remembered sitting by your bed side every night while you were sleeping, after he brought you back from the other side, just to make sure that you were still alive… because he couldn't lose you again."

"He did that in my timeline." Peter said as his eyes flickered back in Walter's direction as the two continued to speak. "He didn't think that I knew about him doing that, but I did." He brought his right hand up to rest against his chin as his brain yet again began to scramble to make sense of what was going on with his father. Whatever it was, he couldn't say that he hated the idea of Walter getting all of his old memories back. Peter almost selfishly wanted the man that he had grown to know as his father back, and if he actually was returning, then maybe it would be the best thing for him. Just like Olivia, perhaps Walter would also be a lot happier having the memories and experiences that he had originally had before the timeline had been reset. Now the question for them to solve next was; how was it happening? Olivia had started gaining her memories back when she was had been injected with cortexiphan by David Robert Jones in this timeline, but as far as he knew, his father had never been treated with cortexiphan.

"I remember my father saying once before that the brain is one of the most complex and resilient organs. All of our experiences are up there somewhere; we just have to find a way to get to them. Maybe that's how he can remember. His brain might be like a tape that someone else has recorded over and then some of what used to be there before is now bleeding through again."

"Like a palimpsest." Astrid almost whispered and glanced back over to Walter who had moved onto another box and was placing all of the contents onto the table next to it. "I don't think that he's ready to talk about it yet. He hasn't spoken a word to me since he said it earlier…"

Peter examined his father for a moment longer before he glanced back down at Astrid. Walter seemed to be withdrawn and distracted from what was going on all around him, in fact he hadn't even noticed that he had finally made it into the lab. "Right, I won't say anything to him about it. Not yet. But he can't hide from this forever." The doctor had told all of them to make sure that he took it easy for a while and not to upset him if they could help it, which didn't seem to be going so well at the moment.

"Hey, dad!" Peter called out to him as he strode over to his father's side, Astrid a few steps behind him. "Let me help you out with some of that."

"Oh, hello Peter! I didn't hear you come in. When did you get here?"

"Just a few minutes ago. Is everything alright with you, Walter? You seemed kind of distracted."

The question seemed to irritate him for a moment, but then he seemed to relax. "I-I'm okay." He gave him a weak smile. "I just have a lot of work to do, that's all."

Peter was unconvinced. "What do you think about us getting out of here later? Just the two of us. We can get us a Root Beer Float and just hang out… like we used to."

"That would be a splendid idea!" He said, suddenly sounding more cheerful. "I would love to." he glanced around at all of the boxes that were still piled up around the lab and bit his lip, his OCD tempting him to stick around to finish up everything before he did anything else. "Can you help me with a few more of these boxes before we go? My lab is in ruins and I can't leave it like this."

"Of course, Walter." Peter chuckled as he picked up the nearest box and gently sat it down in front of him, knowing that his father would throw a fit if he wasn't careful. Reaching over to the side, Peter grabbed the box cutters to cut the tape. "I think this one goes in your office. I'll take it in there for you."

The three of them spent the next couple of hours walking about the lab, placing everything back onto the shelves where they had been before and the closer that they got to finishing, the happier that Walter seemed to become. Although the three of them might have finished a lot sooner if Walter hadn't stopped working every few minutes to take a trip down memory lane as he pulled old projects out of each the boxes.

"The Neural Stimulator… I remember this." He paused for a moment and his eyes suddenly went blank.

"Walter, what's wrong?" Peter asked, looking up after he noticed the sudden silence from his father.

"Did we try to use this on an empath once? A bald child?" he asked as his eyes drifted over to Peter and their eyes locked. "Or was it merely a dream?"

"No, Walter. It happened, but in my timeline." Peter replied as he reached out and placed a hand on his father's shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.

"You already knew, didn't you? About these memories… Astrid told you, didn't she?" he asked as his eyes fell and Peter took a step forward and pulled his father into an embrace.

"Yeah, she did."

"I'm scared, Peter." Walter almost whimpered, but he managed to contain himself.

"I'm here for you, dad. I've been through this… I know that we can get through this together, just like we always have."


	5. Remembrance

**Author's Note:** I'm sorry for the delay with this chapter, but it turned out a little differently than I had originally intended for it to turn out... but I hope that you enjoy it anyway. This story will be wrapped up in another chapter or two, however, the other story that I am currently working on is a part 2 to this one. Yes, I know that it was posted before this one was even finished, but I love Halloween, so I couldn't help myself.

 **Chapter 5:** Remembrance

Olivia pulled up to Harvard and parked her car out in the dimly lit parking area, with light poles scattered all around it. It had been a long day inside of the Fringe Division after going back and forth with some of the higher-ups in the building in order to regain possession of the tape that Walter had left behind for them to find. After much debate, however, and a lot of red tape later, she had finally managed to get her hands on it and was out the door to make her way back to Walter's lab. She had wanted to know what had happened to Walter just as much as everyone else did, and she would do almost anything to help finally put the mystery to rest, especially after how much it had effected Peter to not have any sort of closure, and now he might be able find some.

Sighing, Olivia pushed open her door and got out of her car and quickly made her way inside, out of the cold with the tape buried beneath her coat. She was almost thankful that things were seemingly falling back into place; a routine of sorts that she had grown used to over the years since she had been working for the Fringe Division, but everything had seemingly been more than just a little askew since Walter had vanished.

"I finally managed to get the tape back." Olivia said, as she came through the door to Walter's lab and pulled out the tape and was met by silence, causing her to begin looking around. At first it seemed as though no one was there, which was strange, but then Astrid came out of her old office off to the side of the lab, wearing a warm smile as she greeted her.

"Peter took Walter out for a root beer float." She informed her, seeing the confused look on her face. "Walter is starting to remember things that he's never experienced before and it was starting to make him a little nervous. So… Peter thought that it would be a good idea to get out of the lab and get all of this off of his mind for a little while." She stuck her hands in her pockets and glanced around the messy lab that was still littered in cardboard boxes, and Olivia followed her gaze.

Olivia nodded but her curiosity was getting the better of her. "What did he say?"

Astrid's gaze once again met hers, but sadness had now filled her eyes. "I-I know how Peter's death affected him. I saw what he was like with Aaron too…" Astrid shook her head. "I think that he's remembering things from Peter's timeline, because he just starting talking about something that he had recalled from Peter's childhood… after the time that he had died."

Olivia looked down at the tape that she held firmly in her hands and then back up at Astrid, knowing that it was more crucial for Walter to see the tape, now more than ever. "From the look on your face, I'm guessing that he didn't take it very well?"

"I think that he's a little scared. Like you were… when you were starting to remember everything from the alternate timeline." she said, keeping her gaze on Olivia, the only other person that had ever been in a situation like this before. Olivia would be the first to admit that regaining her memories was one of the scariest things that had ever happened to her, at first, because it had felt like somebody else was in her head, but after a while, she had stopped fighting it and embraced it, because of her sudden realization that the memories that she had originally had, made her a better and happier person. So could Walter eventually become the same way? Could he embrace this like she had come to do in the past?

* * *

"This is wonderful, thank you son." Walter said as he finished a long drawn out sip of his Root Beer float that was sitting on the table in front of him. "It feels like it has been years since I've had one of these."

"You're drinking it like it has been quite a few years too." Peter teased as his attention was drawn to his cellphone as it started vibrating on the table, and took notice that it was a message that Olivia had sent to tell him that she finally managed to get the tape back and that she had brought it back to the lab. Unfortunately, Walter had caught him looking at his cellphone too.

"What does it say?" Walter asked as he eyed the phone and wiped his mouth off with a napkin that he had left lying nearby. Peter swiftly collected it from off of the table to keep his father from seeing what Olivia had sent to him, even though he probably couldn't see it from that far away to begin with.

"It's just some spam." He replied as he stuffed the cellphone into his pocket and grabbed his own root beer float from off of the table and took a long sip of the cold drink through the straw in attempt to make a show of being disinterested in what the text had said. "It was something about a contest that I was eligible to enter." He shrugged, he had used that excuse a million times and it rarely worked but he had to try again anyway. He had only just managed to get Walter's mind off of everything and he just wanted him to be able relax for a while, while he still had a chance at it.

"I know you too well, Peter." Walter said as he continued to eye his son. "Well enough to know that you're lying to me. It had something to do with me, didn't it? You don't have to protect me son, I can handle it."

"Walter—" Peter started, but he stopped himself and took in a deep breath. "I just got you back… I don't want to lose you, not again. You look like you've been sick or something… and I don't know what happened to you while you were gone, but I just want you to take it easy for a while." He wished more and more that he could just protect his father from all of this, and from everything that was going on around them for the time being. He knew how the man was and even though he was aware of just how much Walter could handle, he still felt the strong need to protect him from this, from the unknown.

"I won't be able to rest easy until I find out what happened to me, Peter. You should understand that better than anyone." Walter gave Peter a stern gaze to which Peter frowned and leaned forward to rest his elbows against the table.

"Alright. I think that's fair enough." He said as reached out to place a hand over his father's hand that was resting against the table. Peter was hesitant to say more, but his father was right of course and he owed it to him to be honest with him. "Olivia brought the tape that you recorded back to the lab. Massive Dynamics has been working on it, trying to see if they can recover some of the missing pieces of the puzzle and… they think that they've been able to recover some of what was lost."

Walter nodded, suddenly feeling butterflies in his stomach at the thought of it, but he knew that he needed to see what was on this tape that Astrid had told him about. "This tape, it could be the key to unlocking parts of my memory… Which could be one step closer to finding out what happened to me… W-We must go immediately." Walter said as he promptly slid out from underneath the booth and headed off towards the door, leaving Peter to follow along with a knot in the pit of his stomach.

"Walter, could you hold on just a second?" Peter called out to him after they made it outside. "Just slow down, okay?" Walter, who had already made it over to Peter's car, looked back at him as he grabbed ahold of the handle to open the door. "I wanted to spend some time with you… just like old times… I-I don't think that I realized how much I'd miss you until… until you were gone." Tears were starting to well up in his eyes as he admitted everything to his father. Peter had spent a good portion of his life without his father being in his life and hating him almost every second of it, and now that he actually had the opportunity to get to know his father, and what he had been through, and to see what sort of man his father actually was, he had grown to admire his father in a way. Reaching out, Peter placed his hand on his father's cheek and looked him in the eyes. "I'm not ready to lose you… after we just started getting to know each other again... I know now that I should have visited you while you were at St. Claire's… Or spent more time with you while I had the chance…"

Peter felt like a kid again as he spoke these words to his father, but they were the feelings that he had tried to bury and keep pent up inside of him as he searched everywhere for him, slowly giving up hope of finding him every step of the way. After a brief pause, Peter's eyes went wide in realization of what he had just said. This Walter was from a different time line than his own, and that meant that he hadn't been around to actually come and visit him, and that thought had hurt him even more. This Walter had been alone all of this time, no family after his wife had taken her own life after their Peter had died, and all that he ever had to look forward to each day was waking up in St. Claire's to receive shock treatment therapy or whatever else it was that they had done to him in there.

"Peter…" Walter softly said his name as he reached out to touch Peter's face to get him to look at him. "I'm regaining certain memories now… I'm not certain how I'm remembering it. But I do. And I remember when you first came to see me there in St. Claire's, my first words; _I thought that you would be fatter…"_ Walter smiled as he watched his son laugh through his tears. "I must admit that I was rather unnerved by all of this at first… But now that I'm starting to see everything that we've been through together, I wouldn't change it for the world… I-I want to remember it, all of it. I love you… and I want to remember everything."

Those words stirred something deep inside of Peter as he leaned in closer to hug the man, and buried his head in his shoulder as he began to cry ever harder. This Walter was _his_ Walter, the one that he had missed, the one that who had raised him, and the one that he had gotten to know, and now he was starting to feel like _that_ Walter to him once again.


	6. I Shouldn't Be Here

**Chapter 6:** I Shouldn't Be Here

Walter was eager, yet nervous to see what secrets that the tap would hold, even though he had a few theories about what those very secrets could be. Peter had been erased from the timeline once before, but he had somehow managed to return back to the very timeline that he had been erased from. It had had something to do with the machine; he had gathered that much from all of the events that had occurred just right after he had reappeared. By all accounts, Peter shouldn't even exist at all and Walter knew that he shouldn't be there either. Walter had a multitude of questions that he needed to have answered, but those questions only led to even more questions instead of answers. Had it been God rewarding him for something that he had done? Or was this something else entirely?

Taking the tape nervously in his trembling hands as Olivia handed it out for him to take it, Walter just stood there staring at it for a moment, taking in all of the different textures of the hard black plastic of the tape on the inside of the white box. His fate was resting there in the palms of his hands and now that he had it, he wasn't so sure that he actually _wanted_ to see just what was on that tape; he just knew that he _needed_ to see it.

"Take your time Walter." Peter said as he rested a hand on his shoulder, causing Walter to snap out of his trance and glanced up to meet his son's gaze. "I would probably be just as nervous about seeing what's on that tape too." He pointed at the object as he spoke. "We're here for you."

"Thank you, Peter… but if you don't mind… I think that I would like to have some time alone to watch this. I-I hope that you don't mind?" He said, giving him a sad smile before turning to make his way over to his office. He wanted to face whatever it was that was on the tape alone and he didn't want them watching him for any reactions that he might have as he watched the recording. Of course he knew that they had meant well, but he had obviously been trying to protect them from _something_ , but he couldn't be sure what that was, and which case he had found out, he didn't want them to know about it.

In his office, Walter sat the tape gingerly down onto his bed, almost as if it were a piece of sensitive lab equipment that could be damaged by the slightest jar of motion, so he handled it with the greatest of care. Turning, he could see that three of them were watching him through the windows to his office, so he reached over and began shutting all of the blinds before he finally turned to pick the tape up once again and made his way over to stand in front of the tiny television set that he had only moved back into his office earlier that day.

Walter stood there staring down at the tape for what felt like hours as the clocked kept ticking on by and he didn't move from that spot in front of the television because he was so transfixed and lost in his own thoughts as he just nervously stood there unable to budge. "I must do this…" he told himself in an attempt to encourage himself as he reached out to turn the television on and pulled the tape out of the box and popped it into his old VHS player. Grabbing the remote, he sat down on his bed and listened carefully to everything that he had recorded himself saying months ago:

" _Peter, I sent you a letter. It contains something of mine. I imagine you called me to ask why would you send such a strange letter? And when you tried to call, I didn't answer. So you came to find me at the lab. But I was not to be found. I was here one moment and vanished from the face of the Earth the next. I want you to know I'm fine. And living many, many years from now. You will never see me again. You will never see me again because it had to be this way to ensure the future of our humanity. Your future. The future of Olivia. And the future of 'Etta. I don't want you to be sad. The time we had together we stole. I cheated fate to be with you. And we shouldn't have had that time together, but we did. And I wouldn't change it for the world. I don't want to say good-bye. But I will say... I love you, Son."_

Walter watched the message intently as his image faded in and out with some static here and there on the screen, feeling his heart rate starting to speed up as images sped back to him, clearer in his memories now than that of the tape that was playing tight there in front of him. Why hadn't he remembered recording any of this? "The Observers…" he muttered, feeling a tear starting to run down his cheek. "I-I shouldn't be here… I should be in the future… why am I not there in the future?" he quietly said to himself, hoping that none of the others could hear him. Picking up the remote once again, he rewound the tape to watch it again and again, hoping that it would burn something more into his memory, or that he might pick something else up that he hadn't the time before.

Did the plan work? Were the Observers gone? They had to be didn't they? All of them were still there, the attack had never happened… or could it have just been a delay of sorts? Or should he risk telling the three of them about the Observers to see if they could even remember them? There was only one thing that he knew for sure and that was he didn't want them to know about the attack or what happened to Etta, because that's why he did what he did. He didn't want them to have to know or live through a future that was as bleak and as horrible as the one that he had visited in the year 2036.

* * *

"He's been in there an awful long time." Astrid pointed out as she ran her fingers through the front part of her hair, starting to feel the weight of the day weighing on her. "I hope that he's alright."

"Should someone go check on him?" Olivia asked, looking over to her with a frown. Olivia was leaning up against one of the countertops in the lab and dually noted that Astrid was feeling just as tired as she was.

"Maybe…" Peter replied as he uncrossed his arms and made his way across the lab and over to Walter's office door and stood there for a brief moment before slowly reaching out to knock before he entered.

"Walter…" he said, cracking open the door to peer inside and Walter quickly clicked the television off. "You know that I've already seen that, don't you?"

Walter nodded slowly, but didn't say anything as Peter came over to sit next to him on his bed. Tears were still streaming down his face, enough to where he knew that he couldn't hide them even if he had tried.

"What was that? Why did you say all of that?" he asked as he pointed a thumb in the general direction of the screen, but all Walter could bring himself to do was shrug in reply.

"You've got to remember something; otherwise you wouldn't be like this…" Peter reached out and placed a hand over his. "I know you well enough by now to know that you're hiding something from me, dad."

"Peter… I-I can't… not yet." He muttered as Peter reached over and put his arms around his father's shoulders.

"Whatever happened… I know that you did it for us… that's enough for me right now." He said as he kissed his father's cheek and pulled him into a tighter embrace. Peter had hoped to save him from seeing what was on this tape for just a few more days or heck, even weeks or months, knowing that the man wasn't ready to see what was on it, but Walter had been just as persistent as ever and he knew better than anyone else that he would need to watch it or it would have bothered him even more than knowing what was on it.

"You never let me go Peter… That's why I'm still here." Walter muttered through his sobs. He could remember everything that had happened now, things that hadn't happened yet and things that never would, things that he had been cursed with remembering.

There were some fond memories that he could recollect from all of the carnage that had been occurring all around them, one in particular of him and Peter sitting on the train getting ready to head on back to the lab in the year 2036. Peter had been sitting there in the seat in front of him, listening to him as he told Peter that he had been slipping away and becoming the man that he had been once before and begged him not to let him go and Peter gave him some reassurance that he wouldn't let him go. And that word, dad. He had called him _dad_. The one word that gave him more joy from hearing than any other and it was the one word that he had, at one point, thought that he would never hear his son say again when he had died yet again that night in the lake… and yet there he was sitting there right in front of him then and now. He had kept his promise to him in more ways than he could possibly ever imagine and their love for one another had to be the very thing that had brought him back.

There was another thing that Walter was aware of now too, the boy that all of them grew to know as Michael, he had been the one who had responsible for him now being aware of the alternate timeline and all of those memories that had been hulled up in there, that had seemingly been sealed away and yet he had somehow reopened that very door for him. He wished that he could thank him for everything in some way, but how could he now?

"That's why I'm still here too." Peter said as he pulled away from his dad to gaze into his eyes. "You and Olivia couldn't let me go and I couldn't let either of you go… that's why I'm still here."

"Love…" Walter muttered with a nod. It was an emotion that had been strong enough to move mountains and in this case, an entire universe to bring all of them back together again and he hoped that this time that it would be for good.

* * *

 **Author's note:** Well this is the end of my very first Fringe fanfiction and I hope that all of you enjoyed it. I appreciate all of your support and I thank you for reading it... I am aware that I have made some grammar mistakes while writing, but I hope that none of them were _that_ bad... but hey, I'm still learning to get back into this. Anyways, if you want more of this story line, all of my story lines will most likely be connected unless I state otherwise, so part 2 to this one is 'A Tattered Book in An Old Asylum' which I am having a lot of fun writing. I hope to see you there.


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